Olympic Chan

 CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OLYMPICS-1937- While Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) and little son Charlie Jr. (Layne Tom Jr.) get ready for a fishing trip someone steals an experimental robot plane the US government was testing. As luck would have it both Chans discover the plane on the beach where they were going to fish. Inventor Hopkins (Jonathan Hale) thinks former employee Arthur Hughes (C. Henry Gordon) stole it. Hopkins and his assistant Cartwright (John Eldredge) accompany Chan on a steamer to Berlin. Meanwhile Chan’s son Lee (Keye Luke), on his way to The Olympics as a swimmer, investigates the link between his friend Dick (Allan Lane) and a mysterious woman Miss Roland (Katherine DeMille) who seems to have a connection to the missing device. Captain Strasser (Frederick Vogeding; pompously self assured German stereotype) helps out. They find the missing device in the luggage of Olympian Betty Adams (Pauline Moore), also a friend of Lee’s and Dick’s girlfriend, but it's obvious Betty wasn't in on it. Later Lee is kidnapped. Chan figures it all out in the end (and so will you) and Lee wins a gold medal! 

Although it takes place in Nazi Germany (a film of Jesse Owens winning his gold metal race is shown) there's really no reference to it. This was the third in a row CC feature H. Bruce Humberstone directed. The next year he'd direct CHARLIE CHAN IN HONOLULU and go on to make I WAKE UP SCREAMING and some Tarzan films before going into TV. The next Chan installment would be CHARLIE CHAN ON BROADWAY.

Useless Note: Frederick Vogeding's character's last name is Strasser. The same name Conrad Veidt's character had in CASABLANCA (1942).

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